SIN.

Sin is inevitable. It is in everyone. It is in every character in The Scarlett Letter. Hester, Pearl, Dimmsdale, and Chillingworth are all guilty of sin. Hester and Dimmsdale are guilty in the fact that they both committed adultery. Hester is hated and Dimmsdale goes virtually unknown. He got it easy. He only has to deal with the punishment and guilt he has thrown upon himself while Hester has to deal with public and private punishment. She has to wear the A and she punishes herself. She lives in isolation with only one person who does not look at her with a face of disapproval. That one person is another sign of her own sin. The baby is a gift from god and a punishment. She is all she has. “… a lovely and immortal flower, out of the rank luxuriance of a guilty passion. How strange it seemed to the sad woman, as she watched the growth, and the beauty that became every day more brilliant, and the intelligence that threw its quivering sunshine over the tiny features of his child! Her Pearl!”(Hawthorne, 82) Pearl may not be directly guilty of a sin, but she is the result of one. Also, she throws rocks at birds and disrespects people while going against society like her mother. Like I said, sin is inevitable. She will have her sins in life too. Dimmsdale is also a sinner. He is the master Dimmsdale. He is the Pasteur, a church leader. He is part of the ministry. He does wrong by committing adultery and by lying to his peoples. He is one of the biggest sinners in the novel. Oh right, Chillingworth. To me, he is the biggest sinner of them all. He is Hester’s husband. He hides that from the whole town to avoid shame. Along with that he leaves Hester to rot alone while society strips her of any difference she once had. He Leaves his wife to die. Not literally but you know, shes dying inside. That beautiful, elegant, luscious person is just a thing of the past. “She who has once been a woman, and ceased to be so, might at any moment become a woman again, if there were only the magic touch to effect the transfiguration”(Hawthorne, 148) Hester is both a sinner and a saint.